


Summer(s on its deathbed)

by CantSpeakFae



Series: The Scars Souvenir [18]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Between Seasons/Series, Episode Revisit + Revision, Missing Scene, Written from Xander's P.O.V
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 20:21:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18301283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CantSpeakFae/pseuds/CantSpeakFae
Summary: Figures. They've only been doing this for one night and they're already going to have the reputation for being a bunch of Slayer-Wannabes.





	Summer(s on its deathbed)

“Willow, are you sure you should be out of bed?” Giles asks, as they step toward the school in the bright sunlight of a new morning.  
  
People push past them, without a second glance. It’s strange, watching them go. Blissfully unaware how close they all were to terror and pain and literal hell on earth. Xander feels colder for that knowledge. Colder still glancing up at Giles as he speaks, seeing him limp and the bruises on his face. Some of them are the yellow of just starting to develop, others are already varying shades of black and purple.   
  
“Look who’s talking.” Willow says, her eyes just as sad as Xander feels.   
  
Giles smiles. A pained smile. “Yes.”   
  
“Any word?”   
  
That startles Xander. He hadn’t seen Buffy since… but he hadn’t assumed that no one had. “You guys haven’t seen her either?”   
  
“No.”  
  
“But we know the world didn't end, 'cause…” Oz says, looking around. “check it out.”  
  
Giles takes off his glasses and squints against the bright light. “Well, we, uh... we went back to the mansion. I-it was empty, um... and Acathla was, was... dormant.”   
  
Willow shook her head. “I think the spell worked. I felt something go through me.”  
  
Cordelia nodded. “Plus the Orb did that cool glow thing.”  
  
Xander wasn’t there for that. And he feels a strange chill go through him, thinking about what he was doing. Lying to Buffy, saving Giles - w _ho wasn’t even happy to see him, who was convinced he was a hallucination until Xander pointed out that Giles would never want to see him… and Giles agreed. He tries not to think too much about it, there are other things to think about, but he’s finding that he can experience hurt on a different level_ \- and then getting the hell out of there. He missed the spell and he missed Buffy.  
  
“Well, maybe it wasn't in time.” He says. Trying to reassure them and reassure himself. “Maybe she had to kill him before the cure could work.”  
  
“Well, then, she'd wanna be alone, I guess.”  
  
Willow’s ever the optimist. “Or maybe Angel _was_  saved, and they want to be alone together.”  
  
“Perhaps,” Giles says, but he doesn’t sound convinced.  
  
“Well, she’s gotta show up sooner or later. We still have school.”   
  
“Yeah,” Willow said as she looks around for any sign of Buffy. “She’ll be here in a while.”  
  
And that’s that. The bell will ring soon and it’s another day on the Hellmouth. Moving on and past the latest trauma, facing the new one with a grim smile. Xander trails further behind them, his gaze on the ground. The rest of them are so sure that Buffy’s going to be showing up, any minute from now, with her “bomb” beanie and a smile.   
  
But Xander?   
  
He’s not so sure.   
  


* * *

  
“Buffy didn’t come to school.”   
  
Willow looks up at him from her wheelchair, her expression dark with gloom and uncertainty.   
  
“You really expected her to?” Xander asked, settling down in a chair next to her.   
  
They’re in the common area. The library is still decorated in caution tape and roped-off to the general public, so they’ve had to retreat to a different place to get their scooby chat fix. Giles is nowhere to be seen. Maybe he went home already. Makes sense, Xander’s pretty sure that he’s got wounds in hidden places that he’s not telling them about and Xander feels another surge of fury against Angel and whatever he did to Giles.   
  
“I thought she… well, no. But I hoped.”   
  
Yeah and hope’s a dangerous game to play. No matter how it ended, yesterday, there’s no way Buffy would wanna come to school, after. He’s not even sure why they did. It’s so depressing, today. More so than usual. Every hour creeps by, and the police that are still walking around in the library are a sudden and harsh reminder that the things they do - the things that Buffy does - aren’t just between them. That other people could find out. They’re still blaming her for Kendra’s murder. Makes sense. She fled like a bat outta hell and Kendra’s real killer has been dead since the 1800s. Even the police in Sunnydale can pull an obvious conclusion out of a hat. Doesn’t make them right, but still.   
  
“If Buffy had come to school, she’d be in handcuffs right now, downtown, talking to the men in blue about you-know-what.” Xander said, leaning closer to Willow and lowering his voice. “And even if that wasn’t the case? Face it, Will. She’d need some R&R before she even thought about coming back to math tests and pop quizzes.”  
  
“Will you go to her house?” Willow asked, catching Xander by surprise.   
  
“Huh?”   
  
“It’s just… if she’s home, someone should check on her! And I can’t do it because I have to go home right after our “study” session. Mom and Dad are kinda freaked that I almost died while they were gone. They’re all about spending time with me, right now… I figure I better enjoy it before I get better and they go back to forgetting all about me.”   
  
It’s sound reasoning. Xander doesn’t know why he’s so afraid of being the one to see Buffy, though. Maybe because he lied to her face. Oh, yeah. That could be it.   
  
“Sure, I’ll go.” Xander says, out loud, anyway. “I don’t have anywhere else to be. You know Tony. The less he sees of me, the better.”   
  
There’s an unhappy feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something telling him that things are going to get much worse before they start to get better, and he slumps down in his seat.  
  


* * *

  
“What do you mean, she’s gone?”   
  
He’s standing on the Summers’ porch, staring at Ms. Summers in shock. It’s not even two hours after he promised Willow he’d go and he’s already regretting it, suddenly understanding that phrase about the can of worms. Can? Open. Worms? Everywhere.   
  
“She left.” Ms. Summers sniffles, wringing her hands. She looks like she’s been crying all night. Probably has been. But then her gaze suddenly turns accusing, bloodshot eyes narrowed at him and, for a wild second, he thinks she’s remembering the love-spell thing. But what comes out of her mouth is more shocking than that could have ever been. “Did you know she was a vampire Slayer?”  
  
_Uh-oh._  
  
“Shhhh!”   
  
Xander pushes his way into her house without really thinking about it, shutting the door behind him and leaning back against it.  
  
“Who told you?” He asked.  
  
“Buffy did! Last night, before she stormed out of the house with that strange man. The one who attacked the school, during the Parent/teacher night? She was going on and on about slaying vampires and killing demons… and I thought she was lying to me, or maybe doing drugs, but then I went through her room. I found her diary and her - her weapons! She’s either very deluded, or she’s…”   
  
Why didn’t he tell Willow that he couldn’t be the one to do this?   
  
“She’s not crazy,” Xander says, hoarsely. “I swear, she was telling you the truth.”   
  
“I saw a man turn into dust. How is that not crazy?”   
  
He really shouldn’t have been the one to come here. He’s not good at comforting people. At explaining things. He just falls silent and looks at her, unsure what to say. It works just fine for her, though. She’s not interested in any comfort he has to offer her. She just wants answers and, in a way, that’s worse. Because no one knows less about this than him. He knows that Buffy is a Slayer, and that he helps her, but he doesn’t know the technicalities, the rules, the whys. He just jumps where she tells him to jump.  
  
“Who else knows about this?” Joyce asks, blinking furiously to keep a fresh crop of tears at bay.   
  
“Willow,” Xander says, coughing slightly. It feels wrong to talk about the secret, but she already knows enough that keeping it from her will just piss her off and angry parents always scare him. “Uh, Cordelia. Oz. And uh, Giles.”   
  
“The librarian?”   
  
That surprises her more than the others and Xander suddenly realizes how it must look on the outside, to other people.   
  
“Yeah. Except, he’s not just a librarian, he’s…”   
  
Yeah, he really shouldn’t be the one telling her all this. He doesn’t know what she still shouldn’t know, doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. It’s too much. He shakes his head.   
  
“Listen, he knows more about this than I do and, and he can explain it better. I hope. Just, where did Buffy go? Have you seen her since last night?”   
  
“No.” Ms. Summers said, sniffing and shaking her head. “She came back, but I didn’t see her. She only came to pack her things and leave a note. It’s on the kitchen counter.”   
  
A note? Xander looks quizzically at Ms. Summers before he turns and stalks to the kitchen. There’s a folded up piece of paper sitting on the edge of the counter that divides the room. He picks it up and unfolds it, carefully. There, in Buffy’s handwriting. It doesn’t explain anything, just says that she’s gone and she’s not going to be coming back. Says that it’d be better for them all if she didn’t.   
  
Xander drops the note back on the counter, somehow processing all the stages of grief at once and even inventing a few new ones, just for the hell of it. She left? She ran away? No, that doesn’t make sense. She wouldn’t do that to them, would she? She wouldn’t just take off on them, because they’re all still friends. Best friends, in fact. And she wouldn’t run so soon after Xander had his arm broken by a vampire.  
  
She wouldn’t run so soon after Kendra had her throat slit open.  
  
She wouldn’t run after Willow had a bookcase fall on her head and almost kill her.  
  
She wouldn’t run after Giles was tortured, for hours, by Angel and Drusilla.   
  
She wouldn’t run because this is still a Hellmouth and there are still vampires and they still need her, here, or they’re all as good as dead with as often as a new evil rises.   
  
She wouldn’t.   
  
But she did. According to this note, without a single mention of where she would go or what they were supposed to do without her.   
  
“Ms. Summers?” Xander calls, turning his head back toward her. “Can I use your phone?”   
  


* * *

  
Giles is there in twenty minutes, even though he’s sure that it takes at least thirty-five to get from his apartment to Buffy’s house. He’s still bruised, but the look in his eyes is no longer just the pain of new injuries, it’s the horror of realizing that Buffy is no longer in Sunnydale and that none of them had any idea that she was gone, giving her one heck of a head start.   
  
“You’re, you’re absolutely certain that Buffy has gone?” Giles asked, as soon as Xander opened the door.   
  
“Why would I call you over here if I wasn’t?” Xander asked, tersely. More so than necessary, but seriously.   
  
“Right,” Giles said, stepping into the Summers’ home and realizing that Ms. Summers is sitting on the couch, curled up into herself, looking exhausted and weirdly vulnerable.  
  
This is still all new to her and Xander gives Giles a look.   
  
“She knows.” He says, simply. “Buffy told her… well, I don’t know how much Buffy told her, last night, but she knows that Buffy is a Slayer and that we know, too. I didn’t know what else to, to tell her.”   
  
“I understand.”   
  
Giles doesn’t look at him, his shoulders slumping.   
  
“Xander, why don’t you go home? Or, or call the others. Let them know what’s happened. I’ll speak with Ms. Summers.”   
  
“Okay.”   
  
No arguments there. He knew from the get-go that he wasn’t Mr. Explain-it-all-away or Mr. It’s-not-that-bad. And he doesn’t want to stick around for the ensuing conversation, even if that means he has to go and tell the others that Buffy’s skipped town.   
  
It won’t be easy. Especially telling Willow, but with a glance back at Ms. Summers, he’s pretty sure he’s still getting the better end of that deal… if only by the slightest margin.   
  


* * *

  
Two weeks pass.   
  
Buffy doesn’t come back.   
  


* * *

  
Three weeks, and school is out for the summer.   
  
Not a word. Not a call. Not a postcard.   
  
Everyone’s on edge. Ms. Summers has been frantic, according to Giles. Calling relatives, family friends, anyone that Buffy might have gone to. Willow always looks… down, like she’s been crying and even Oz is noticeably more morose than usual. Giles’ has hardly spoken to anyone, disappearing from their lives mentally.   
  
That’s the only relief about school ending, really, is that they can stop sitting in the library, trying to start conversations with him, only to be ignored. Willow had been devastated when Giles, who usually asked them about their end-of-term grades or how tests were going, completely ignored her enthused celebrations for passing all of her finals with flying colours. Xander, who’d maintained a solid C-average was less bothered by not having to talk about it… but, really, that is the only good thing about not haunting the campus anymore, because now they’re just sitting with too many hours and too much hope that they have no right having.   
  
They don’t even really hang out with each other, anymore. He thinks that Willow and Oz might still be going on dates, but as a group, they’ve sort of drifted without Buffy. Going out loses its spark. Conversations drift off at the very mention of her name or even anything vaguely related to her.   
  
Xander starts spending more time at home.   
  
Tony notices. Because, of course, he does.   
  
“Don’t you have any fucking friends?” Tony asks, as soon as Xander walks through the door that night. “Did they ditch you, you worthless piece of shit?”   
  
“Yep,” Xander says because he doesn’t feel like getting into it. And he ducks when Tony lobs a beer can at his head.   
  
He has to get out of this house. He can’t spend a whole summer, here, trapped with his parents and their criticisms of his entire existence. But, he’s not going anywhere tonight, so he stalks up the stairs to his bedroom and slams the door shut, behind him, jumping on the bed and hiding his face against the pillow while he listens to his mom screeching at him for slamming the door and then Tony yelling at her for yelling over the TV.   
  
It’ll escalate from there and Xander tenses, waiting for the inevitable moment when he’s called back down to get his face kicked in for causing the fight.   
  
He misses Buffy. There’s nothing she could do for him, here… hell, she might’ve even just gone to L.A to visit her dad, again, but at least he’d feel less of a weight in his heart if he knew where she was and that there’s going to be better times ahead, after all this shit. But he’s starting to feel like he’s in the fourth act of a Greek Tragedy and that his head is about to be cut off or something.  
  
He slides out of bed and goes for the phone on his nightstand, dialing Willow’s number.   
  
“...Hey, Will? What’re you up to, tonight? Uh-huh? Wanna see a movie or something? Yeah, I know. It’s just, I gotta get out of the house and - yeah? Bring Oz too, that’s fine. See ya there.”  
  


* * *

  
“We can’t keep just sitting around,” Xander says, one night, when it’s just him, Willow, and Oz. Cordelia’s off on her family vacation away from Sunnydale, and they’ve been doing the same old things. Following the same routine they would have if Buffy was still there, minus the demon fighting. “It’s not… healthy.”   
  
“What if she shows up?” Willow asks, softly.   
  
She’s the one that pushes so hard for them to keep coming back to the Bronze. Just in case Buffy comes back and decides that she wants to party to celebrate, apparently. As Willow goes, so does Oz. And so does Xander, because the other option is sitting at home, listening to his parents scream at each other until Tony inevitably wants someone to work out his anger on and Xander is the bestest human punching bag in the world. Five-star-reviews from the demons that usually kick his ass.   
  
“I don’t think this would be the first place that she comes, Willow,” Xander says, but he can already feel himself losing that argument.  
  
“She might.”   
  
They sit in silence for a while. Until Xander can’t take it, anymore.   
  
“I’ll see you guys later.” He says, pushing up from his seat.   
  
Willow gives him puppy-dog eyes, but Oz only nods.   
  


* * *

  
He doesn’t go home. He wasn’t kidding about there being nothing for him there but pain. But he can’t sit in the Bronze anymore, with the heaviness in the empty space where Buffy should be sitting next to them, tossing her hair, laughing, dancing, or even fighting with as many times as she’s killed something in that place, not even counting the roaches.   
  
He’s restless.   
  
He’s angry.  
  
He’s worried.   
  
He’s -  
  
So dead.   
  
A snarl sounds out from behind him. He’s walking through one of Buffy’s patrol areas without even realizing it, but someone else realized it. Something else, really. Something with fangs, a bumpy forehead, and a mud-streaked suit on. Freshly risen and hankering for a snack. And, unfortunately for Xander, he’s on the menu.   
  
The vampire lunges at him before he can fully recover from his shock, knocking him down to the ground. He twists as soon as his back hits the dirt. His arm is still in that heavy, plaster cast until next week, but healed enough that it barely hurts when he uses it to swing at the vampire on top of him, adding some extra “oomph” to his strike and causing some serious damage. He kicks, he flails, and he freaks. He swings and yells and part of him expects Buffy to show up, then. To flip over one of the gravestones, stake the guy, and help him up with that smile of hers and a tsk-tsk-tsk sound for him being alone, in a graveyard, without a stake.   
  
It doesn’t happen, though.   
  
The vampire, realizing that he’s not going to be an easy meal and that any accidental biting of his cast would HURT, jumps up and runs in the other direction, looking for its dinner elsewhere. And there’s nothing Xander can do, he doesn’t have a stake or even any holy water with him - amateur mistake - so he just lies there and looks up at the sky.   
  
Vampires are still a problem without Buffy. Who woulda guessed? He thought maybe they all went with her. But, no. They’re still here. Still as bumpy and freaky as ever.   
  
And that… actually gives him a thought.   
  


* * *

  
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Willow asks, looking around the graveyard nervously. “I just think… well, what if…”   
  
“It’s necessary, Willow,” Xander says, firmly. “Without Buffy, there’s no one keeping the vampire population down. Funerals have probably spiked. If someone doesn’t fight back, then we’re all as good as juice boxes for the undead.”   
  
“He has a point.” Oz agrees, nodding once.   
  
“W-Well, maybe we should still ask Giles! Because he’s the expert?”   
  
“Buffy was the expert. Giles just has books.” Xander said gruffly. “And good luck catching him between plane trips, anyway. He’s been coming and going like crazy, following all these dead-end leads about where Buffy might be. Have you even talked to him since school ended?”   
  
“Not much,” Willow admitted. “He misses her, though. He’s worried.”   
  
“We all are,” Xander says, firmly. “But we can’t miss her so much that we forget that we live on a Hellmouth. Can’t close that door, Will. We can’t just be helpless without her. And we can’t just let this problem keep growing because we miss her. We’re here, she’s not. We can do something with that.”   
  
“Still. Vampire Slaying… it’s really hard. That’s why Buffy got powers and everything.”   
  
“We can do it. If we work together.”   
  
“I say it’s worth a shot,” Oz says, squeezing Willow’s hand.  
  
Willow bites her bottom lip.  
  
“I guess we can try. Just till Buffy comes home.”   
  


* * *

  
The first night… doesn’t go that great.   
  
They’re awkward and uncoordinated with no real game plan in mind but what they THINK they should do. And, unfortunately, those thoughts don’t line up with reality or each other, so they smack into each other more often than not and the vampire they’d cornered just watches with amusement between punches, because the Scoobs are kicking the snot outta each other harder than he is and entirely by accident.   
  
“Willow! Ow!” Xander yelped when a kick that Willow tried to aim at the vampire gets his shin, instead, mid-flight.  
  
“Sorry, sorry!” Willow squeaked. “I was trying to do that kick that I’ve seen Buffy do, before!”   
  
“Well, you missed!”   
  
“I said I was sorry!”   
  
“Hey, guys? He’s running away.” Oz called, calmly, from where he’d jumped behind a gravestone to avoid a lunge from the vampire.   
  
Xander turned his head. Sure, enough, Count Suckula was on the run and laughing like mad at their weak Slay-game. Figures. They’ve been doing this for one night and they’re already going to have the reputation for being a bunch of Slayer-wannabes.   
  
“Dammit!” Xander swore, kicking a headstone. That hurt worse than the realization that they suck at this, though, and he hopped back on one foot, swearing colourfully.   
  
Willow watched, biting her bottom lip with upset in her eyes. “Are you okay?”   
  
“I’m fine,” Xander said, painfully. “I just need to… well, we should call it a night. Regroup in the daylight. Maybe come up with a better game plan.”   
  
“Are you sure we should do this again?” Willow asked, reaching for Oz as he approached them. “I don’t think we really helped anyone, tonight.”  
  
“Well, I don’t know. We gave that guy a memorable experience.”   
  
“Thanks, Oz,” Xander said, a little too forcefully. “Of course we should try again. This was only our first night of solo-slaying. Or, at least, solo-hunting since we never actually got the staking portion of events. I’m sure even Buffy had a few rough goes of it when she was first called, right?”   
  
Willow doesn’t look nearly as certain as he feels and Oz is indecipherable as always… until he nods in agreement.   
  
“We know about this. Most people don’t.” Oz points out. “We should keep trying.”   
  
Thank god for inflectionless communication. Willow goes resolve face, but not against him for once.  
  
“Tomorrow. Until then, I gotta ice my foot. Xander, your shin is so hard.”   
  
“Oh, I’m SORRY. I’ll be careful not to stand in front of you the next time you try to kick a vampire.”   
  


* * *

  
The graveyard becomes their new meeting place.   
  
It’s bruises that they have to hide, dust that they have to shake from their hair, and bottles of holy water weighing down their pockets… but it’s theirs and it works. Sometimes. They don’t get every vampire. They don’t have the same advantages, discipline, or even coordination that Buffy did, whether as individuals or as a group.   
  
But things get less dour. The emptiness that was left in Buffy’s wake doesn’t go away, but it’s less heavy on their shoulders and they finally start to have real conversations, again. Not ones that are haunted by questions only she could answer. Weeks turn to months. Months turn to three. And summer starts dying on them.  
  
“Did you see the previews for that new movie? It’s a zombie thriller!”   
  
“Zombies? Oh, I don’t know.”   
  
“C’mon, it’ll be fun. Watching someone else fight all the monsters. Besides, Zombies aren't real. Uh, I think. Could ask Giles about that.”   
  
“Mmm, not now. He’s following another -”  
  
“Following another lead, right.”   
  
Xander jumps up and sits on a gravestone, sliding off his backpack, which rattles with stakes, holy water, snacks… and a thermos full of hot-chocolate, which he was looking for.   
  
“You guys want some before we do our last sweep and call it a night?” Xander asked, holding it out.   
  
Willow took it eagerly, while Oz waited patiently.   
  
“Have you heard from Cordelia?”   
  
“Yeah, got another postcard last night. Nothing is written on it, of course, but it came with a picture of her. She’s got quite the suntan.”   
  
“Which she would never get here?”   
  
“Hey, I already made that joke when I wrote back to her. Don’t steal.”   
  
“Ah.”   
  
Willow hands him back the thermos.   
  
“Come on.” She says. “Last sweep and then we’re calling it a night.”   
  
“Who’s left on the register?”   
  
“Andrew. He died mysteriously.”   
  
“Ooh. Sounds like we’re gonna get lucky.”   
  
“Oh, don’t hope for things like that! I still got a bruise from last week.”   
  


* * *

  
It’s the ultimate weird, watching a hand suddenly burst from the soil like someone’s planted a human that’s finally blooming under the moonlight. Even weirder to watch every limb that follows as, slowly, Andrew pulls himself out of his grave: a muddy truth coming out of his grave to eat mankind. He snarls when his head bursts free of the earth and continues to wriggle out like the world’s most demonic caterpillar, pissed off to learn that he didn’t grow any wings. 

  
“That’s right, Big Boy,” Willow says, when Andrew’s out far enough and suddenly realizing that someone is already standing there. She smiles mischievously. “Come and get it.”   
  
Xander doesn’t have time to unpack all of _that_ , because Andrew suddenly hops to his feet and roars at her, making them remember that there are no bambi-leg rules for newborn vampires and Willow takes a few, wild steps backward as the vampire stalks toward her. Xander moves first. He lunges at him, grabbing by the collar of his muddied suit and pulling him back away from Willow, tripping Andrew over.   
  
“I got him! GO!”  
  
Willow scrambles out of the way as Oz jumps out from behind the bush he’d been stationed behind, starting to run toward them, but then hesitating a moment to get the stake out of his pocket.  
  
“Any time now!” Xander yelps, as Andrew starts to regain his balance, using Xander’s grip to stabilize himself.   
  
Too late. Andrew kicks up both of his legs to meet Oz’s face, knocking him backward, and Andrew leaps up again, flipping back over Xander’s /head/ and landing a few feet away. Why the hell are vampires all masters of fighting when they pop out of the ground? What kinda karate is in their genetic code? Xander groans and rushes him, but Andrew swings him into Willow and they both tumble to the ground.   
  
Willow winces in pain but sits up, quickly, watching Andrew go. “He’s getting away! And, OW!”   
  
Oz scrambles to his feet and picks up the stake that’d fallen out of his pocket, watching the vampire run, gauging the distance, and then throwing it… only for it to bounce off of a gravestone and clatter to the ground. Oz frowns.   
  
“That never really works.”   
  
It does when Buffy does it. Xander doesn’t say that out loud, though, just helps Willow to her feet and stretches out his aching… everything.   
  
“Are you guys alright?”   
  
“First of all,” Xander said, irritated. “What was with the acrobatics? How did THAT happen?”   
  
Oz looked off in the direction that Andrew had run in, then nodded. “Wasn’t Andy Hoelich on the gymnastics team?”   
  
Xander coulda collapsed right then and there, all over again, but he shakes his fist in the direction that Andrew went, instead. “That’s right, he was! Cheater!”   
  
That wins him a bemused look from Oz, which is almost as good as having actually killed the vampire. And Xander turns his attention to Willow.   
  
“Okay, and the, uh, second problem I’m having… ‘Come and get it, Big Boy’?”  
  
“Well…” Willow stammered, dusting herself off. “W-Well, the Slayer always says a pun or-or a witty play on words, and I think it throws the vampire off and, and it makes them _frightened_  because I’m wisecracking. Okay, I didn’t really have a chance to work on that once, but _you_ try it every time.”   
  
“Uh, if I may suggest: 'This time it's personal.' I mean, there's a reason why it's a classic.”  
  
Xander steps back and stretches some more of the soreness out of his muscles. He’s really not getting any better at the slaying part of things and, even worse, he’s not even getting any muscle definition from _trying_. He wishes he knew what Buffy’s work out regime was, but he hasn’t talked to Giles at all since…  
  
“I’ve always been amazed with how Buffy fought, but….” He says, picking up his bag. “In a way? I feel like we took her punning for granted.”   
  
Willow frowns. “Xander, past tense rule.”   
  
“Oh, sorry. I just meant we in the past took it for granted and, uh… we won’t when she gets back.”   
  
IF she gets back, Xander adds silently. He knows Wills is still holding out hope, but it’s been three months and she hasn’t called once. He shouldn’t have even brought it up. But -  
  
“Do you think Buffy knows school’s starting tomorrow?”   
  
“Tomorrow. Right. Big day.” Oz agrees.   
  
“Oh I’m gonna be busy a lot. But, but only till three, and that’s when you usually get up.” Willow promised Oz.   
  
“I can’t wait to see Cordelia.” Xander said, then he paused. “...I can’t believe I can’t wait to see Cordelia.”  
  
Willow grins. “I wonder what our first homework assignment is gonna be.”  
  
Xander puts his hands on his hips and gives her a look. Seriously? Homework?   
  
“Hey, you're excited over Cordelia, okay? We've all got issues.” Willow defended herself.  
  
“I guess we should pack it in.” Oz intervened, before they could start squabbling.  
  
And Xander nodded. “Yes.”  
  
They all start to walk away from Andrew's grave, Willow and Oz holding hands and Xander shoving his hands into his pockets.  
  
“Wouldn't it be great if Buffy just showed up tomorrow? Like nothing happened?” Willow asked, wistfully, looking up at the sky like something’s gonna fly by and grant that wish.   
  
Xander just kicked a rock. “She can’t just show up, she got kicked out.”  
  
“Well, yeah, I-I know. I just wish . . . I wish we knew where she was.”  
  
They all do.   
  
But… for now, Xander feels like they’re handling things. A little, at least. They don’t get every vampire, but they get most. And he’s walking into his Senior year feeling a little different. A little… better, maybe.   
  
“I’m thinking,” Xander says, as they walk. “Maybe the issue is that we keep trying to do this like Buffy would. Maybe we should start thinking of our own way to slay vampires. Maybe that’ll be the difference between only dusting two outta five and getting them all…or, at least getting up to three.”   
  
“Okay, but - but we gotta start factoring in homework!” Willow added, giving him a look. “And, and studying.”   
  
“Does she know how to prioritize or what?” Xander asked, glancing at Oz, who only grinned.  
  
Yeah.   
  
Things are gonna get better.


End file.
